The secret to moviemaking success isn't in the amount of cash you spend on the camcorder, the extra lenses you might buy, or the time you take to master advanced photographic techniques. The real key to producing a high-quality, professional movie comes in the editor: and that's why you need Movie Edit 10 silver.

The program starts very simply. If you want to join a few film clips together, for instance, then just drag and drop them on to the timeline (MPEG, MOV, AVI and WMV formats are supported), and export the finished results as Windows Media Video (WMV) file. All finished in the minimum of clicks.

Usually you'll want something a little more complex, of course, so the program comes with a range of special effects. There's a whole range of filters to help correct problems with brightness, contrast, sharpness and colour saturation, for instance. You can precisely crop, resize or reposition an image with ease, and an excellent Object Curve option helps you rotate, twist, pan or otherwise animate a clip in a variety of interesting ways.

Movie Edit 10 also provides a flexible Title editor, letting you add all kinds of animated titles and captions with the minimum of effort. And there's an impressive selection of transitions. There are the usual wipes and scrolls if you need them, but the program also provides far more eye-catching 3D effects, glides, fades, image in image options and more.

For a final touch, add a narration or soundtrack. The program is particularly versatile here: not only does it support all the sound file formats you'd expect (WMA, MP3, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, MIDI), but it even lets you drag in your choice of track from an audio CD.

Ignore the 'time limited demo' reference on this page. No serial code required. This is a commercial full download and is a 'Silver' version of the regular Professional edition. Some menu options lead to features that are only available in the Pro version. Click Help > Contents > Limitations to find out more.

Be quick, this full download promotion will be taken offline on or around 10th of December 2006.

UPGRADE OFFER -upgrade to MAGIX Movie Edit Pro 11

Upgrade to the professional version of the latest Movie Edit Pro 11 and you'll get automatic scene recognition, where the program splits large clips into smaller individual scenes. Clean then up with the motion stabiliser, compensating for unsteady camera work, then try out all the new effects and transitions you have available. Finally export the finished movie in a range of file formats, or burn it to CD or DVD with a custom menu. Click Upgrade within the program splash screen to order, for a mere £33.99.